White Women: This Mess is On US and It’s On US to Get Us Out
Dear White Women:
Are you up for the fight of our lives?
Our lives- and those of our children and grandchildren- will be determined by what occurs between July 9, 2018 when 45 announces his Supreme Court nominee and November 6, 2018 when the midterm elections take place.
Will we allow the Senate to confirm a justice who will assuredly share the views of 45’s Christian fundamentalist base, rich supporters, and endorsers: the National Fraternal Order of Police, the Border Patrol Union, the National Rifle Association, and the Ku Klux Klan?
45 wants nothing more to enliven his base than to speedily confirm a justice who will “Make America Great Again” by rescinding every right marginalized people struggled so hard to attain.
White women: will we stand placidly by as we did in 1991 as Anita Hill testified to Clarence Thomas’ sexual harassment and do nothing to prevent his confirmation or will we stand up fight back?
As Steven Thrasher astutely points out “Believing Hill decades ago could have changed access to the ballot and who occupies the White House now.”
White women are responsible for this mess. Fifty three percent of us voted for pussygrabber in chief. HRC ran a lackluster campaign that failed to engage the New American Majority despite ample guidance on how to do so.
Out of all the marginalized groups in America, white women have the largest numbers, and the most resources.
Gay white men- we need you in this fight, too.
We cannot accept a Supreme Court Justice who will dismantle our hard won rights- from health care and reproductive justice, civil rights, voting rights, women’s right’s, marriage equality, police brutality and mass incarceration.
As Senator Kamala Harris points out, this Supreme Court justice will have a “generational impact.”
We must delay the confirmation until after January 2019, when a new Congress will be sworn in. And we must ensure that that Congress is more progressive than this one.
We must engage NOW.
This does NOT mean we lead this fight, but we must get behind Kamala Harris and do everything she tells us. Sheryl Sandberg, Lena Dunham, Brene Brown and every other major influencer of white women YOU must mobilize your followers & resources behind Black women to defeat this nominee! No tone policing, Nancy Pelosi. From Republicans Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to Democrats representing Red states like Heidi Heitkamp, white women Senators votes are key and they need to hear from us. This is the fight of our lives!!!!
On the 4th of July, Therese Patricia Okoumou captured all of our imaginations by magically scaling the Statue of Liberty to demand children be released.
On June 28, I was one of 630 women arrested at the US Senate to protest family separation.
We can and must put our bodies on the line to stop this process. Too much is at stake.
#standupfightback #supremecourt#womendisobey
Karen Fleshman, Esq. is the founder of Racy Conversations.
Her mission is to inspire the first antiracist generation in the United States.
43% of Millennials are people of color. 47% of Generation Z are people of color.
When we flip 10% of the white people in those generations- and 10% of white women- to antiracism, we will have a majority antiracist generation that will be transformative.
She speaks and cofacilitates workshops on race nationwide and online and contributes to Huffington Post, Moguldom, and The GED Section.
Karen is a cofounder of San Franciscans for Police Accountability and serves on the workgroup overseeing US Department of Justice recommendations on ending bias at SFPD.
www.racyconversations.com @fleshmankaren
